budget

Apple Inc. has set a budget of roughly $1 billion to procure and produce original content over the next year, according to people familiar with the matter—a sign of how serious the iPhone maker is about making a splash in Hollywood.

Congress on Friday passed an omnibus budget bill that included the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. The Senate earlier this year passed CISA, which many conservative and liberal politicians, high-tech firms, and privacy and civil liberty advocates oppose. The latest version includes amendments that will allow corporations to freely share customers’ information with the government. “This is the worst version of CISA yet,” said Mark Jaycox, legislative analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Just when the U.S. federal budget situation seemed about to settle down — it didn’t. With tens of billions of dollars at stake, federal acquisition managers and the IT vendors who support government agencies were breathing a sigh of relief when Congress and the White House agreed to a two-year government spending program last month. The agreement was a positive development in the frequently rocky federal financing and procurement process. Then the wheels started to come loose — although they haven’t fallen off just yet.

U.S. government agencies are gradually learning to deal with budget constraints in the management and procurement of information technology. The emphasis on productivity comes from the Obama administration, the ripple effects of budget sequestration, and congressional pressure for efficiency. “Agencies continue to face budget constraints while trying to modernize IT systems, increase efficiency, and improve citizen services,” noted Deltek market analyst Angie Petty in a recent update of federal IT spending trends.

President Obama on Monday put forward a new budget that includes a one-time 14 percent levy on earnings held by U.S. companies overseas –?funds which would be allocated to a $478 billion public works plan –?followed by an ongoing 19 percent tax on foreign profits, whether the money is repatriated or not.

Nvidia has just launched its new Maxwell-based GTX 960, bridging the gap between the budget GTX 750 Ti and the upper echelon GTX 970 and 980. Is this $200 GPU the power house midrange gamers have been looking for?

Nvidia has just launched its new Maxwell-based GTX 960, bridging the gap between the budget GTX 750 Ti and the upper echelon GTX 970 and 980. Is this $200 GPU the power house midrange gamers have been looking for?

The political spotlight in Washington was on congressional approval of the 2015 budget before legislators broke for the holidays, but a less volatile proposal also was passed in the closing days of the session — one of considerable importance to the information technology sector. In addition to the budget, Congress approved the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, which technically was rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. FITARA focuses largely on the role of federal CIOs and addresses other IT issues.

The GTX 980 and 970 are the Big Billy Goats Gruff to their smaller budget cousin, the GTX 750 Ti. When the first Maxwell GPU arrived this spring, it was clear that Nvidia had something potent on its hands. Maxwell showed enormous promise, leaping over Kepler’s compute performance in multiple benchmarks. Swift price cuts from AMD took the wind out of the 750 Ti’s launch position, but it was clear that this new core was a warning shot. As of now, Nvidia is firing both barrels.